Meanwhile, from the “things you don’t care about, but should nevertheless pay attention to” files, O/N dollar HIBOR soared 60 basis points to 0.71407% on Monday.
That would be the highest since October of 2008 when global markets were reeling from Lehman and AIG.
So a couple of things there. First of all, it looks like I Squared Capital’s HK$14.5 billion deal for Hutchison Telecom’s fixed-line network business might be limiting HKD liquidity.
On top of that, there was this:
- HSBC PLANS SHARE BUYBACK OF UP TO $2B
They’re a lender, so you know, one imagines that announcement could have raised questions about availability of HKD liquidity.
It’s worth noting that HKD is sitting a two-year low and is headed for its seventh monthly loss, the worst streak since 2000:
And of course there’s the old “month end” excuse.
“Monday’s rise in Hong Kong dollar overnight interbank rate was due to major fund providers being more cautious in lending at month-end,” a Hong Kong Monetary Authority spokesperson wrote in an emailed reply to Bloomberg, adding that this was “probably a result of thin market conditions ahead of the month-end and the market continued to function normally.”
Got it. Nothing to see here.
Now you can go back to whatever you were doing.
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